Preview

One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest: Summary and Psychological Influence

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1188 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest: Summary and Psychological Influence
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest takes place in a mental institution in the Pacific Northwest. Chief Bromden, or Chief Broom, narrates the novel. Chief is large half-Indian who has been on the ward for 10 years and has led everyone to believe he is deaf and dumb. We immediately discover his paranoia, and learn he also suffers from hallucinations, including the Combine (a government-like assembly that controls society) and a mysterious fog that fills the ward. The institution is dominated by Nurse Ratched (Big Nurse), a cold, precise woman with calculated gestures and a calm, mechanical manner. When the novel opens, a new patient, Randall Patrick McMurphy, arrives at the ward. He is a self-professed 'gambling fool' who has just come from a work farm at Pendleton. He introduces himself to the other men on the ward, including Dale Harding, president of the patient's council, and Billy Bibbit, a patient who stutters and appears very young. Both of these men are members of the Acutes, a division of patients consisting of those who can be cured, rather than the Chronics who cannot be. Nurse Ratched immediately sizes McMurphy up and arrives at the decision that he is a trouble maker and a manipulator. During the first group meeting, it is revealed that McMurphy has been convicted of statutory rape and that is why he was at the work farm. As the meeting continues, McMurphy witnesses the tearing to pieces of the patients by fellow patients, led by Nurse Ratched. This disgust him and he lets the patients know- calling them chickens. The patients admit to their fear of the Big Nurse. Being the gambling man he is, McMurphy then makes a wager with them that he can get Nurse Ratched to "crack" within the first week. And so the battle begins. McMurphy taunts the Big Nurse and her staff whenever he finds a chance. Much to everyone's surprise, though, McMurphy is not sent to the Disturbed Ward, but Nurse Ratched keeps him on her ward, hoping to prove to the other patients that
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Analysis Of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
    • 428 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Analysis Of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

    The movie is based on Ken Kesey’s best-selling novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. We discover in the film that the Chief is not really dumb and deaf, Billy can speak without stuttering and others do not have to live under the harsh rules of Nurse Ratched. McMurphy will cure them, not by giving them pills and group sessions but by encouraging them to be guys. To go fishing, play basketball, watch the World Series, get drunk, get laid, etc. The message for these mental disturbed men is to be like R. P. McMurphy.…

    • 428 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Chapter 1
    • 403 Words
    • 2 Pages

    One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Chapter 1

    Original Summary: McMurphy wishes to go on a fishing trip with the other patients and a prostitute he knows, but Nurse Ratched denies him permission. The doctor later ends up allowing them to go, but Chief has an internal conflict within himself on whether or not he should go with them and risk revealing that he isn’t actually deaf and dumb. Later that night, Chief accidentally reveals to McMurphy that he can hear and talk, and when McMurphy tells him that he should expose everything he hears, Chief says that he isn’t bold enough like McMurphy to do that. McMurphy makes a deal with him, that if he pays Chief’s fee for the trip and helps make him stronger, then Chief has to help him lift a control panel in the tub room. The next day, when the group goes and stops at a gas station, the attendant tries to take advantage of them, but McMurphy says they’re crazy killers, causing the patients to see that they can use their illnesses to their advantage. After the trip, McMurphy sees that Billy is attracted to the prostitute, later setting up a date for them…

    • 403 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Examples Of Interior Monologue Of Dr Mcmurphy
    • 694 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Examples Of Interior Monologue Of Dr Mcmurphy

    McMurphy I was quite skeptical of his self-diagnosed insanity. He showed tremendous self-confidence and had a certain charisma not often seen in the mentally unstable. Furthermore, Nurse Ratched’s intimidating presence seemed to have no effect on him. When I think back now, to how everything was before we met McMurphy, I wonder how he did it. At the time the patients thought him as some sort of hero, superhuman even. I laughed such notions off at first, considering them to be the desperate thoughts of the weak and unstable. But then he died. Every day his ghost grows larger and more powerful. And as this memory grows, so do the patients. You see it, in the way they talk, the way they hold the once overpowering gaze of Nurse Ratched with ease. We’ve had three voluntary’s leave the ward already since McMurphy arrived here, their own decisions, not mine, not the Nurse’s. Who could accomplish so much in so little time but a hero? When McMurphy saved these patients, he threw away his mind. He lost his sanity so the others may find…

    • 694 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Nurse Ratched By William Mcmurphy
    • 797 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Nurse Ratched By William Mcmurphy

    Alongside words, McMurphy also utilizes physical force to gain power over Nurse Ratched. After the nurse blames him for Billy Bibbit’s death, he is so angered that he makes the decision to attack her while she is in her office: “He’d smashed through that glass door… He grabbed for her and ripped her uniform all the way down the front, screaming again when the two nippled circles stated from her chest and swelled out and out” (319). McMurphy uses his strength to attack Nurse Ratched and lessen her power in front of the patients by exposing her breasts. She hid them because they are an example of her womanhood and since she lives in a sexist society, she felt that the only way she could maintain her power was by hiding the obvious signs that she was a female. When McMurphy attacked the nurse, he “smashed through that glass door.” This shows that he is using his physical strength to attack Nurse Ratched in order to take away her power, and he proves to the others that he has the most power out of all the…

    • 797 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Nurse Ratched vs. McMurphy... David vs. Goliath
    • 732 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Nurse Ratched vs. McMurphy... David vs. Goliath

    One powerful, one small, this is the base of the biblical story David and Goliath. The story, in which a not so strong hero takes down a strong and powerful leader, is much like McMurphy and Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. The match up between McMurphy and Nurse Ratched is a raging and intense one. Through out the novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, McMurphy and Nurse Ratched have always had conflict, as well as a sense of never-ending hatred and disagreement towards each other; which as the novel continues, grows stronger and stronger. Undoubtedly, despite the chaos and tension between them, McMurphy gets the better of the match up, thanks to his ability to manipulate people, his bravery, and his popularity.…

    • 732 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Mcmurphy Character Analysis
    • 399 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Mcmurphy Character Analysis

    They display their hatred towards the Big Nurse in different matters, McMurphy tries to confront Big Nurse directly, while the Chief sticks to himself. McMurphy stands up against the Big Nurse, when he got out of the shower and insisted to Big Nurse that that he did not have any clothes, nor was given anyway. He keeps claiming to the Big Nurse that he does not have any clothes and it almosts pushes her off the edge. In the end, he had his boxers underneath the towel the whole time. Chief Bromden on the other hand keeps his thoughts to himself, and describes the Big Nurse, “She slides through the door with a gust of cold and locks behind her and I see her finger trailed across the polished steel...she’s got a bag full parts she aims to use in their duties today--wheels and gears, cogs polished to a hard glitter, tiny pills that gleam like porcelain, needles…, rolls of copper wires…” (Kesey, 4). This is the first description the reader gets of the Big Nurse, creating the image that the Nurse is not friendly nor liked by some of the…

    • 399 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Sexuality in One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest Essay Example
    • 422 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Sexuality in One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest Essay Example

    The first thing that McMurphy notices about the ward is that the Big Nurse emasculates and weakens the men. He calls her a "ball-cutter" (p. 58), and Harding agrees. In other words, the ward is like a matriarchal society which castrates men. This is graphically symbolized by the death of Rawler, who commits suicide by castrating himself and bleeding to death. In a less literal manner, this is what is happening to all the patients.…

    • 422 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Write An Essay About The Places Lewis In Cosi
    • 607 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Write An Essay About The Places Lewis In Cosi

    when he gets to his new place of work, a mental institution that at start overcomes him.…

    • 607 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Individuality In Ken Kessey's One Flew Over The Cuckoo
    • 1590 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Individuality In Ken Kessey's One Flew Over The Cuckoo

    BEfore McMurphy arrived, the patients believed in everything Big Nurse said and continued to follow the rules without hesitation. However, as McMurphy starts to mock the rules and give the patients opportunities to speak up, they become me vocal, and power starts to shift within the ward. In the beginning of the text, everything is controlled by Big Nurse, as said in the text when she says, “Of course, you may take the suggestion up with the rest of the staff at some time, but I'm afraid everyone's feelings will correspond with mine” (98), implying that her word is final. At this time, McMurphy is asking politely to watch the baseball game, and Big Nurse uses her power to decline without hearing his reasoning.When they throw a party in the ward, however, without any supervision, Big Nurse is nowhere to be found. All the patients come together and decide to get drunk, invite a prostitute, and have fun. Without regard to the rules, Chief starts to realize that as he partied, “ it came to me as a kind of sudden surprise that I was drunk, actually drunk, glowing and grinning and staggering drunk for the first time since the Army, drunk along with half a dozen other guys and a couple of girls—right on the Big Nurse's ward!” (311). This is the moment when the patients finally completely let loose and have fun. This is important because even though McMurphy plans everything, the patients don't back out like usual and finally let loose. By the end of the text, the power shift from the ward to the patients becomes more…

    • 1590 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Critical Analysis
    • 1129 Words
    • 5 Pages

    One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Critical Analysis

    The advancement of technology over the last decade has been used to further security methods in society. Devices such as surveillance systems in stores have caught suspects and decreased crime, but only by a mere 0.05% (Welsh, Farrington) (specifically in Chicago, which currently has 15,000 cameras throughout the city). So, does this implementation of surveillance really make people behave? The texts “Panopticism” by Michel Foucault and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey both focus on how to make people behave. Foucault's theory explains that if surveillance is used on people in seclusion, the authorities will claim ultimate control. Kesey’s novel challenges this theory once new ward member McMurphy is transferred in, as he provokes…

    • 1129 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Quest In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
    • 2279 Words
    • 10 Pages

    Quest In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

    In the novel, McMurphy coming to know that all the patients on the ward are not not committed while he is meaning that they can leave whenever they want to unlike him exemplifies the stage of despair, darkness, and hopelessness. The stage is also exemplified when he finds out that Nurse Ratched is the one who decides when he will be able to leave the ward exemplifies the stage of despair, darkness, and hopelessness. After he realizes this, he starts to stop being rebellious which sets him back on his quest and main goal of helping the patients. McMurphy feels obligated to the Nurse and feels hopeless against her because he wanted to to leave and be able to help the patients out. He feels hopeless against Nurse Ratched after finds out that she decides if he leaves or not because he had always been rude and rebellious towards her the minute he first came in to the ward. He fears that she will use this reasoning against him so he doesn’t leave the ward. McMurphy feels that he has to do anything that Nurse Ratched wants and stop being rebellious if he wants to get out of the ward quickly. This can be seen when Harding says, “Why friends, you don’t suppose there’s anything to this rumor that Mr. McMurphy has conformed to policy merely to aid his chances of an early release?” (166). Here Harding is telling the other patients on the ward about how their “savior” McMurphy has lost and conformed to Nurse Ratched’s rules. He is saying that McMurphy conformed to Nurse Ratched and stopped trying to get rid of Nurse Ratched’s power and authority just because he found out that he is committed and that she is the one who decides whether he get to leave early or not. This supports the fact that this is the stage of hopelessness because him coming to the acknowledgement of Nurse Ratched being the one that decides…

    • 2279 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Nurse Ratched Essay
    • 402 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Nurse Ratched Essay

    “She’s too big to be beaten… She’s lost a little battle today, but it’s a minor battle in a big war that she’s been winning and that she’ll go on winning” (96). Once again, the word ‘big’ is used in a metaphorical sense to encompass the extent of Nurse Ratched's power. Since she has already achieved such a great amount of jurisdiction, the Nurse is primarily motivated to maintain what she already possesses. In order to do so, she has to defeat McMurphy. After all of the power struggles between the two, Nurse Ratched eventually comes out on top. Once she has finally had enough of their games, the Nurse uses her authority and sends McMurphy away. After McMurphy has been gone three weeks, she make her “last play” (274). When he returns, it is obvious what has occurred. The other patients find him lying in a gurney labeled, “MCMURPHY, RANDLE P. POSTOPERATIVE,” and below that is written, “LOBOTOMY” (274). She had sent him off to be lobotomized, which left him brain dead. His body is still alive and breathing, yet he no longer poses a threat to the Nurse and her…

    • 402 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Creative Writing: Paxon's False Enemies
    • 552 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Creative Writing: Paxon's False Enemies

    McKenzie tells her friends DJ and Paxon, so they agree to go to this asylum but, having second thoughts because of McKenzie’s “condition”.…

    • 552 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest Research Paper
    • 1759 Words
    • 8 Pages

    One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest Research Paper

    The author of the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Keasey, received his inspiration for the book while volunteering at a veteran's hospital. This is where he was first introduced to LSD. The moment he tried it, he became addicted, and began experimenting on himself with the drugs, observing the effects. The novel deals with the tyrannical rule of head Nurse Ratched in a mental hospital somewhere in Oregon. She runs all business and daily life in the asylum to her every whim and rules the ward by fear and manipulation. This has gone on for as long as the narrator, Chief Bromden, can remember. However a new patient, Randle McMurphy, enters the hospital and begins to wreak havoc upon the system put in place by the nurse. In One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Keasey, the author demonstrates the use of psychotropic drugs and its effects in conjunction with counterculture through the tyrannically controlled mental hospital ruled by Nurse Ratched. The asylum setting of the novel also gives access to observe the characterization of the novel by analyzing the different strains of insanity exhibited by each patient. The representation of the individual vs. society come through the conflict of Randle McMurphy and the social order of the asylum.…

    • 1759 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Bromdon POV
    • 475 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Bromdon POV

    Later on, the group therapy session began. The doctor squirmed in his chair. The redhead, McMurphy looks puzzled again, and sits down and straddles his chair. Harding hasn’t noticed McMurphy at all, even though his is sitting right in front of him. Only after McMurphy comments that the meetings were a ‘pecking party’ does he notice him. McMurphy continues to harass Harding, and I want to say something, but yet again, I cannot blow my cover. He’s going to get us all in trouble. What is the Big Nurse going to do to us?…

    • 475 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More